It’s driven by a “rise in gun crime”. But this isn’t about gun crime; it’s about drug crime, drug dealers killing each other, not threatening the mainstream population. These guys aren’t getting into gun battles with the cops, or waving guns around on the High St.

And if you are in a gun battle with innocent bystanders around, what the hell use is a bloody spray’n’pray submachine gun?

So tooling up for routine patrols is just yet another example of the Met – one of Britain’s poorest-performing police forces – thinking uncritically. The force, using New Labour’s culture of dependency and authoritarianism as its excuse, is truly out of control.